President Barack Obama made a high-profile push for a military threat against Syria to be maintained Monday night as a surprise diplomatic move appeared to offer a way out of the crisis.

While Obama said on ABC News that a U.S. attack “absolutely” would be put on hold if Syria followed through on the proposal from Russia, he questioned whether Syrian President Bashar al-Assad would yield control of his weapons stocks.

“We have to be skeptical because this is not how we’ve seen them operate over the last couple of years,” Obama said in a separate interview with NBC News.

Mr. Obama gave interviews to six of the big television networks in an effort to convince a skeptical Congress and the public of the need to punish Syria for an alleged chemical weapons attack that killed upward of 1,400 people.

But Mr. Obama conceded he was pessimistic about winning congressional approval for limited strikes on Syria. “I wouldn’t say I’m confident” about the measure passing, he said.

Asked what he would do in such a situation, he said, “I think it’s fair to say that I haven’t decided.”

But as Mr. Obama’s interviews were being aired, Congress began stepping back, at least momentarily, from a vote to authorize military action.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid cited “international discussions” in unexpectedly postponing a test vote originally set for Wednesday on the president’s call for legislation backing a military strike. And Intelligence Committee Chairman Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat, said she’d spoken with the Russian ambassador and believes the Russian proposal “is sincere.”

There are people that are looking for any way to get out of this [vote]

“There are people that are looking for any way to get out of this” vote, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon, a California Republican, told reporters.

Republican Senators McCain and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, the strongest Senate advocates of strikes on Syria, said Congress should proceed with the votes because “only the threat of military action against the Assad regime’s chemical weapons capabilities is what could create a possibility for Assad to give up control of those weapons.”

The two senators, in a statement, expressed concern that “Russia and Syria will use this gambit as a way to play for time and continue the massacre of innocent men, women, and children.”

Hopes for a non-military intervention rose after Russia appeared to take an offhand suggestion from Secretary of State John Kerry seriously.

Asked by reporters in London if there was anything Mr. Assad could do to avert a military strike, Mr. Kerry said, “Sure, he could turn over every single bit of his chemical weapons to the international community in the next week — turn it over, all of it, without delay and allow the full and total accounting. But he isn’t about to do it, and it can’t be done, obviously.”

Jen Psaki, a State Department spokeswoman, said Mr. Kerry’s statement wasn’t an ultimatum or a proposal, just a “rhetorical argument.”

But hours later, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov promised to push Syria to place its chemical weapons under international control and then dismantle them quickly to avert U.S. strikes. Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem embraced the proposal.

But any international plan to take control of Syria’s chemical weapons would face enormous practical hurdles, including how to ensure that Syria surrenders all of its hidden nerve gas, and would buy time for Mr. Assad in his fight against rebels.

Locating all of Syria’s hidden and constantly moving chemical weapons would be difficult in the middle of a civil war, said one U.S. official familiar with the issue, citing the long and fruitless search in Iraq for the chemical and biological weapons that the administration of President George W. Bush said Saddam Hussein had hidden.

That search, the official said, was conducted while U.S. and allied forces occupied Iraq, while international inspectors in Syria would need a protective force.

A second problem is the time it could take to win a United Nations Security Council agreement on a transfer and verification plan, the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the administration’s choices. With Russia and China having veto power in the council, Mr. Assad could use months of debate to import more arms from Russia, Iran, China and North Korea and continue his offensive against the rebels.

Further, the official said, Mr. Assad has little or no incentive to surrender his chemical weapons now because it would be taken as a fatal sign of weakness inside his country. One possible incentive Russia could offer is more conventional weapons — which would strengthen the regime’s hand against the rebels and continue the killing.

Mr. Obama said he talked with Russian President Vladimir Putin about attempts to put Syria’s chemical arms under international control when the two conferred last week at a summit of the Group of 20 nations in St. Petersburg, Russia.

“This is a continuation of conversations I’ve had with President Putin for quite some time,” Mr. Obama said on PBS.

Mr. Obama told CNN that his officials would examine the proposal, but said that if Syria was serious about surrendering control of its chemical weapons stockpile it was only because of the threat of a military strike.

“If we can accomplish this limited goal without taking military action that would be my preference,” Mr. Obama said. “On the other hand if we don’t maintain and move forward with a credible threat of military pressure I do not think we will get the kind of agreement I would like to see.”

We have to be skeptical because this is not how we’ve seen them operate

The plan got a harsher reception from State Department deputy spokeswoman Marie Harf. Calling the move a stalling tactic, she told reporters that while the U.S. would welcome any effort to bring Syrian chemical weapons under international control, it doesn’t believe Syria would comply with any plan to remove them. She added that Russia and Syria have lied for two years about the Assad regime’s chemical arsenal.

“We have to be skeptical because this is not how we’ve seen them operate over the last couple of years,” Mr. Obama told NBC.

The president spoke after the Syrian president also took to the airwaves to warn America of “repercussions” for any military strike.

Mr. Assad, in an interview with American journalist Charlie Rose, warned the U.S. that his turbulent region was an “area where everything is on the brink of explosion. You should expect everything.”

Asked whether any Syrian retaliation against the U.S. or its allies would involve chemical weapons, Mr. Assad said, “It could happen, I don’t know. I’m not a fortune teller to tell you what’s going to happen.”

Mr. Assad said that if the U.S. attacked it should expect “repercussions somewhere else, in different forms,” and such responses could be both “direct and indirect.”

You are going to pay the price if you are not wise with dealing with terrorists

He warned other elements besides the Syrian government could respond. “You have different parties, you have different factions, you have different ideology.

“You are going to pay the price if you are not wise with dealing with terrorists. This war is against the interests of the United States.”

Mr. Assad said there was not a “single shred of evidence” that his regime had used chemical weapons.

“Iran does. But Iran is not going to risk a war with the United States over this,” he told NBC.

Mr. Obama’s full-scale media onslaught is a bid to win over a highly skeptical public and with the majority of the U.S. opposing any strike on Syria.

A Bloomberg News tally now shows a majority in the House — 218 members — would vote “no” or are currently leaning against approving a use-of-force resolution. With two vacancies in the 435-seat chamber, it would take a majority of 217 votes to approve or reject military action.

Public opinion is running increasingly against a military action. A Pew Research Center-USA Today poll found the proportion of Americans against a U.S. strike grew to 63 percent from 48 percent over the past week. The heightened opposition was across party lines in the survey, conducted Sept. 4-8. Support was unchanged at 28 percent. Six in 10 said there are no good options for the U.S.

An Associated Press poll showed that only 1 in 5 Americans believed that failing to respond to chemical weapons attacks in Syria would embolden other rogue governments.

And a slim majority — 53% — feared that a strike would lead to a long-term U.S. military commitment in Syria.

The president acknowledged that his support in Congress for military action is weak. He said he hasn’t decided whether to proceed with a strike even if lawmakers turn him down.

Meanwhile, Mr. Kerry drew criticism for sending the wrong message to the Assad regime after promising that any strike would be “unbelievably small”.

The campaign would be a “very limited, very targeted, very short term effort that degrades his [Mr. Assad’s] capacity to deliver chemical weapons”.

Mr Kerry said: “We’re not talking about war. We’re not going to war. We will not have people at risk in that way. We will be able to hold Bashar al-Assad responsible without engaging troops on the ground or any other prolonged kind of effort.

“That is exactly what we’re talking about doing — unbelievably small limited kind of effort.”

Senator McCain, the leading Republican supporter of intervention in Syria, said Mr. Kerry’s remarks conveyed the wrong impression to Mr. Assad.

Mr. McCain has been pressing for a more aggressive U.S. response to the 2 1/2-year-old Syrian civil said he is “very, very skeptical” that Russia can make good on its offer. The Arizona Republican said it shouldn’t delay congressional authorization for the president.

“It’s a reason for senators to vote for it because it’s obviously the threat of this that has caused them to even make this concession,” he said.

Democratic Senators Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota last week circulated an alternative proposal that would give the Syrian government 45 days to endorse an international ban on chemical weapons — or face U.S. military action. Manchin said the Senate’s Democratic leadership promised to allow a vote on the alternative.

Classified briefings for lawmakers just back from vacation were part of the White House’s bid to avoid a humiliating defeat in Congress, as were the public release of disturbing videos of men, women and children writhing in agony from the evident effects of chemical gas. Mr. Obama also arranged a trip to Congress and he will make a prime-time address to the nation on Tuesday night.

“Today, many Americans say that these atrocities are none of our business, that they’re not our concern,” Mr. Reid said of Mr. Assad’s alleged gassing of civilians on Aug. 21. “I disagree. Any time the powerful turn such weapons of terror and destruction against the powerless, it is our business.”

Others came down on the other side of the question.

“I will vote ’no’ because of too much uncertainly about what comes next,” said Sen. Lamar Alexander, a Republican, reflecting concerns that even the limited action Obama was contemplating could lead to a wider war.

Sen. Heitkamp, a Democrat, also voiced opposition. “I strongly believe that we need the entire world, not just America, to prevent and deter the use of chemical weapons in Syria, or anywhere else on the globe,” she said.

In the House of Representatives, one of two female Iraq war veterans in Congress announced opposition to military strikes.

Legislation approved in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last week would give Obama a maximum of 90 days to carry out a military attack, and it includes a ban on combat operations on the ground in Syria. Both of those limitations were last-minute concessions to critics of a military option, and it was unclear whether Mr. Reid would seek additional changes to build support.

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